I finished culling my many years of S.F. photographs yesterday. "Culling" may be hyperbolic, though. I whittled them down to about 180. Now I need to choose, what?--ten or so? I don't know shit about building a website, so this is all a wild shot in the dark. Really. . . I can't see the target.
In a folder from my visit in 2012, I found this photo. I'd never processed it, so I took it into post-production and sent it to Q. This was our afternoon visit to a bar downtown he said was owned by a friend. The friend was not there, so Q gave him (or her) a call. As I remember, we drank for free. It was early, though, and the place was empty.
"It gets going around midnight," Q said. I think that is what he said. Probably. It was three in the afternoon as I remember it.
Now I will begin culling my NYC photos. Many, many more there. It will be a giant task. After that, Mexico, South America, China, Europe. . . . I should be finished with this part of the website by. . . I'll never finish, I'm afraid. But it is fun going through them all.
The weather here is supposed to be extreme on Monday--storms, flooding, tornadoes. That is the day of my surgery. I was already feeling a foreboding. Now. . . I'm spooked out of my head. A dark cloud looms on my horizon.
I am an anxious person, I think. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I am. I bottle it up, of course, but it makes me ill. I saw this the other day, though, and thought, "Maybe I'm not alone."
The God gene hypothesis proposes that human spirituality is influenced by heredity and that a specific gene, called vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2), predisposes humans towards spiritual or mystic experiences.
You can Google it for yourself. Maybe we can't help how we feel about such things anymore than we can determine our hair color.
Well. . . I've changed mine. Perhaps that is a bad example. But you get my drift.
I have a minority reaction to many things. Drugs, for instance. I don't have the right brain chemistry for coke. Some muscle relaxers jack me up. Valium is like speed for me. Smoking pot and eating mushrooms do not put me in a happy place. Opioids and alcohol, on the other hand, seem to work quite fine.
I'm probably a genetic romantic, too. I am sure, as the old song goes, I'm "addicted to love." Only recently have I begun to think badly of the women who have left me over the years. They have always remained "Golden Girls" in my thoughts, and I missed their warm and gentle touch. But lately, I've begun to remember the shitty things they did, the horrible, mean, selfish things, and their brilliant lights have dimmed. Is it a shame? Maybe. I've perpetually taken responsibility for the things that went wrong, but now I am remembering what I did right. I was true and never took another lover. I'm pretty certain the same cannot be said for them. Maybe not a physical lover, but their hearts and minds drifted. I listen to the old song.
I'll bet she's not like me
She's out and fancy free
Flirting with the boys with all her charms
But I still love her so
And brother don't you know
I'd welcome her right back here in my arms
As my friend once said about me, "If she came back, the door is always open."
Don't know if that is true anymore. I've been ghosted, and I don't think it was anything I had done.
But these have been dark days, and my mind has not been right. I read some more yesterday about the drugs I have been taking. I had to as I filled out the surgical form required of me. I should have read more carefully before. Hallucinations was a side effect of all the antibiotics I took. I'm already susceptible to paranoia, sure. And I have that "martyred" feeling sometimes, something my friends berate me for. Maybe that is genetic, too. But in my madness these past many days, when I would close my eyes, old lovers faces would appear just above me, and not in a loving way. I would open my eyes to see them. Then I would close them again and they would reappear.
Yes. . . my mind has not been right. My mind has taken a darker turn. Things look bleak.
Look at Q's face in that photograph. That is like the faces leering down at me when I close my eyes. Enigmatic. Maybe menacing.
Jesus, I need to get a grip. I am nothing but paranoid about the surgery. Something is sure to go wrong, something the surgeon didn't count on. I'll wake to bad news.
"I'm afraid we are going to need to take the leg below the knee."
Or maybe I'l get a terrible, life-threatening infection. No. . . I need to keep worrying. Otherwise, disaster is a certainty.
It is tough tackling the void alone. I don't hold it against Generation Next or whatever they are called for turning to their chosen gods. Society has failed them. Church will make them feel better and more secure. They have learned the old Hemingway lesson, "A man alone ain't got no bloody fucking chance."
But, I think, they are going to miss the Great Adventure.
Well, there must be some way I can lose these lonesome blues
Forget about the past and find somebody new
I've thought of everything from A to Z
Oh, lonesome me
Yeah. . . on the other hand. . . .
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